Words on the journey of raising a boy who eschews many social “boy” labels, and empowering him along the way.

An Olympic Tribute

I’ve got to admit that I’m an Olympics addict. I live for the Olympics, especially the summer games. And I can’t say how thankful I am to have DVR this time around so I can watch everything, still sleep, AND get to miss commercials. And, I’ve gotten Q to be an official Olympic addict with me — what could be better?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Olympics from a “labels are for jars perspective,” if you will. In particular, I’ve thought a lot about swimming. There’s something spectacular about the new suits that folks are wearing.

Of course, they help the swimmers go faster than one could ever imagine. But they also do this great thing: they dull the gender binary among swimmers when we look at them, especially from afar. Men are wearing one-piece suits that go over their shoulders. Just like women. And it’s not unmanly. Nor does it mean they are weak. In fact, just the opposite. I like that Q can see men and women in the same suits, especially since bathing suits are, in his mind, a very clear marker of sex and gender, and one that he would like to explore, he reminds us frequently.

The other great thing about these suits is that I’ve not heard a negative comment uttered about them at all. Announcers speak of how they help swimmers go even faster, of their amazing construction, etc. But not once has someone noted the fact that men are wearing the same suits as women, nor have they implied that it took “getting over something” (pride, image, etc) for the men to wear these suits.

So among the heroism, perseverance, and amazing feats that make up the Olympics, I’ve also seen glimpses of yet other ways that we can inject a bit of consciousness into society about our labels and our binary oppositions.

This is awesome. I hadn’t thought about it that way, so I’m glad you did, and passed it on.

Speaking of things that have to do with Michael Phelps (no Olympic addiction here, uh-uh). I was reading People magazine (can you believe I’m admitting it in print?) the other day. It mentioned his ADD diagnosis. His mom said teachers told her he couldn’t focus. ‘He could sure focus on the pool,’ she pointed out. Another good reminder brought to us by the Olympics. Sure, the ability to focus on the pool didn’t do him any good when he was trying to make it through spelling and math, but I think it’s always a good idea to recognize and acknowledge this kind of difference – wasn’t that he couldn’t focus. He just wasn’t focusing then. What if we made a practice of noticing and considering what kids (and the rest of us) are focused on, even (or especially) when it’s inconvenient or apparently unproductive?

I wasn’t going to include that in my comment, as it strays a bit from the topic at hand, but I looked over the tag list and figured I’m in sync with enough: expectations, labels, identity, future, passion…

So many kiddos working out who they are and who they’re going to be, and taking cues from our words along the way.

I really like that they chose suits in the same style…I also like that the switch was no big deal. It’s really the small things like this that make our world broader or narrow it without us realizing it.